Speculative Fiction—an all-encompassing genre created to describe stories of science fiction, fantasy, alternate history, and other stories that have an element of “What if...” in them. A story in speculative fiction is one that adds an element of the unreal, or asks, what would become of our society if history took a different direction at some important event? Fiction with a little something extra thrown in.—William D. Richards

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Wednesday, August 31, 2016

It’s that time of the month again, time for “Indie Speculative Fiction of the Month”.

So what is “Indie Speculative Fiction of the Month”? It’s a round-up
of speculative fiction by indie authors newly published this month,
though some July books I missed the last time around snuck in as well.
The books are arranged in alphabetical order by author. So far, most
links only go to Amazon.com, though I may add other retailers for future
editions.

Raised among hostile, violent beggars, Nemma longs for the safety of
her family and a better quality of life. She uses trickery and brute
force to survive, but living among the desperate has its risks. When she
inadvertently kills two powerful magiens, with a power she didn’t
realize she had, she is forced to flee and seek help. This sets in
motion a chase that will have a fatal end for her if she is unable to
escape the all-powerful Sovereign Order.

Ambitious merchant, Clisantha, manipulates others to work her way up
the social hierarchy in Torak City. She uses her illegal powers to
preserve her status, scrutinize her devious Lord stepfather and meddle
with a mysterious magien. However, when hidden memories of her
long-deceased father resurface, she becomes absorbed in the mystery
surrounding his death, forcing her to put herself, her beliefs and
everything she has strived for at risk.

Nemma and Clisantha’s lives collide and revolve as they fall deeper
into the secrets of their past, revealing a truth far more devastating
than they could ever have imagined.

Deviants of Giftborn is the first installment of The Etherya Series,
a thrilling epic fantasy saga exploring the cost of consequence,
justice and power. If you like compelling action, determined heroines,
and magical societies, Zuri Amarcya’s adventurous and enchanting tale is
perfect for you.

A searing act of bioterrorism. A catastrophic plague they call the Pretty Pox.

Most of the human race is dead, and for two years Arie McInnes has been
alone, riding out the aftermath of the Pretty Pox, waiting for her own
inevitable end.

Hidden in the attic of her ruined home, Arie survives by wit and
skill, ritual and habit. Convinced that humans are a dangerous fluke, a
problematic species best allowed to expire, she chooses solitude…even in
matters of life and death.

Arie’s precarious world is upended when her youngest brother – a man
she’s never met – appears out of nowhere with a badly injured woman.
Their presence in the attic draws the attention of a dark watcher in the
woods, and Arie is forced to choose between the narrow beliefs that
have sustained her and the stubborn instinct to love and protect.

In Book One of August Ansel’s captivating new post-apocalyptic series, After the Pretty Pox
casts an unwavering eye on what it means to be human in a world where
nature has the upper hand, and the only rules left to live by – for good
or ill – are the ones written on our hearts.

Heaven has fallen.
The legions of Chaos have overrun the world.
Uërth is in ruins.

With the Heavenly Host’s fall, Angel Swords rained from the heavens, littering the world in what was.
Only the most honorable and purest of heart are able to take up the
Angel Swords and wield them against the throngs of Chaos. These mighty
Empyrean Knights are all that stands between Uërth and annihilation.

Maeraeth is neither a hero nor a great warrior. Nor does he wish to become an Empyrean Knight.
He just wants to be left alone with his studies.
And not be killed by demons.

But, with the destruction of the Chaos Gate, Uërth may have a chance at redemption.
If the hordes of Chaos can be contained and if no more portals to the Abyss are created.

Maeraeth’s teacher, Master Nomba, has other plans for him. Plans that
involve both containing demons and preventing their arrival.

With an enhanced mind and born to the ruling class – The Board – Nick
spends his days hacking AI. Tasked with eradicating the bots created by
Roko Kasun, the long-dead architect of the Artificial Intelligence
that’s crippling the planet, Nick takes refuge behind his keyboard. He’s
no hero.

The Board had been severing ties with the rest of mankind, retreating
to safety, unplugging and conceding the fate of the world, or so Nick
had thought. Now, a summons from Leadership draws Nick into the very
real disaster-zone on a last, desperate mission to save everything, and
he’ll need to trust the most unlikely ally of all: Roko himself.

Gant is a commoner, forbidden from learning swordsmanship. He trains
in spite of the law and ends up branded an outlaw. However fate
intervenes while Gant is on the run and soon he is embroiled in an
odyssey with forces of darkness that can only be vanquished with help
from his friends, not all of whom are human. An epic that delivers the
best in the tradition of classic fantasy.

Victoria can’t wait to start college, but there’s a hitch—she can’t
remember anything before arriving on campus. Her memories finally spark
when she sees her ruggedly handsome math professor, but she senses
something terrible happened. The shock on his face affirms her fears.

Toby is an alpha wolf who never thought he’d see his true love
again—not after she died in his arms. Nothing could have prepared him
for her walking into his class. But to his dismay, not only has she
forgotten the past, she doesn’t even know who she is.

He’s determined to do whatever it takes to restore what they’ve lost.
Can Toby help Victoria recover her memories, or will he lose her
forever?

USA Today bestselling author, Stacy Claflin, brings you Lost Wolf, the first book in the Curse of the Moon
series. It’s a paranormal romantic suspense saga that features gripping
supernatural drama, surprising twists, dynamic characters, and
heart-pounding romance.

All who kill a pterosaur are cursed. But Rob Sardan went a step further – he killed their King.

To break the curse he must escape a prison of ice and crystal, south of
south, beyond all hope. With a ragtag team of former pirates, a failed
thief and a strategist who cannot be trusted, they seek a ship that can
sail on a sea of fire.

They must cross the grinding ice, challenge an empire, and face the
dread pirate Skagra before she unleashes the Crown of Black Glass. But
above all, Rob must face the ghosts of what he has become…

King Killer. Sword-breaker. Sky Slayer.

‘Glory is like a circle in the water which never ceaseth to enlarge itself, till, by broad spreading, it disperse to naught’.

The leader of the new breed, Robert James, is missing. The few remaining vampires are being picked off, one by one.

Vampiress Elaine Sullivan is keeping her head down, working as a
barmaid and trying not to attract attention. Until, that is, she falls
for a man who claims he can cure her vampirism. It’s her only hope for
survival and she grabs it. The trouble is: he lied.

‘Bite The Hand That Feeds’ is the follow-up to ‘The Young Vampire’s
Survival Guide’ and the second in the ‘New Breed Vampires’ book series.
Written in British English, it can be read as a standalone novel. This
new adult horror book contains bloody violence, swearing, lashings of
vampires, paranormal strangeness, sex and other good times.

The first three books in the Pistols and Pyramids series (an ancient
Egyptian-themed spaghetti western with magic and mummies), now available
in one collection at a great price!

Kekhmet, the empire of the Two Lands, is a faded shadow of its former
glory. Once the shining jewel of the world, the empire has been split
apart by the invasion of foul Hesso marauders and the depredations of
corrupt governors. The gods and goddesses of Kekhmet are all but silent,
and the people struggle to find hope in their hardscrabble lives.

RANGER OF MAYAT: When Tjety, an exiled Ranger of the goddess Mayat,
discovers a ransacked fishing village along the lawless northern
frontier, he marshals his training and divine hekau magic to hunt down
the vicious cultists responsible for the attack. But can he find them
before their prisoners are twisted into mindless slaves serving a
ruthless necromancer bent on shattering the tenuous balance between
order and chaos?

FLIGHT TO THE FORT: Tjety, an exiled Ranger of Mayat, and Ruia, a
young fisherman’s daughter, team up to guide the survivors of a bandit
attack through the dangerous and rugged Kekhmet frontier. Can they reach
the safety of Fort Sekhmet before foul cultists and their horrible
mummified creatures can capture them?

HOUSE OF THE HEALER: After surviving a brutal cultist attack on her
village, Ruia led the other survivors to the safety of Fort Sekhmet with
the help of Tjety, a Ranger of Mayat. With Tjety’s life now hanging in
the balance, can Ruia gather enough help and learn to use her newfound
hekau magic to heal Tjety before the forces of darkness close in and
snuff out all hope?

The First Storyteller Tale: Through the Portal
If Larreta is your destiny, you will find it.

Valerie finds herself on Larreta, but it looks so much like
California, she doesn’t believe she has entered a new world. Leo knows
his chance for love has come and gone, but when he meets Valerie, the
beautiful newcomer makes him wonder if there are second chances.

As the Storyteller begins her tales of the dreamwalkers of Larreta,
Valerie and Leo are thrown together to forge their destinies on what
looks like a perfect world. But as Valerie learns about Larreta, she
discovers not everything is as it seems.

That Day in the Desert is the first tale of the dreamwalkers
of Larreta, a romantic fantasy that spans worlds and time, an adventure
of eternal beings who must overcome the legacy of their journey into
the human world so they can reclaim their heritage.

Lizzie is a teenager, an AP student, and a singer of folk songs. She
wakes one day in a strange world. The women who revive her tell her they
have summoned her to help them understand the aliens who have landed on
their shores. They also tell her she can never go home because they
scooped her up when she was about to die. Captured by witches, kidnapped
by a dwarf, enraptured by river sprites — Will Lizzie ever find her way
home?

A beautiful mixture of sorcery, mythical beasts, and aliens, Lizzie
in the Land Beyond is a fantastic read from beginning to end. I love the
characters, the voice of Lizzie and her bumbling youthful arrogance,
the larger than life Adeline, and curmudgeonly Sculdar, and the strong
and silent Osric. — Cynthia Varady on Goodreads

For nearly two long years, the world’s superpowers have mobilized
their people and resources in preparation for the next discovery, Mars.

The race against one another pales in comparison to the inherent
dangers of travelling through the vastness of the cosmos, going where
mankind has never gone before. Facing the hostile and challenging
environment of space, and nations ready to do anything it takes to win,
Richard, ‘Rock’ Crandon pulls his team together in an attempt to reach
the alien technology on the red planet first, and discover the intent
behind the alien species.

Will mankind tear itself apart in the name of discovery, or will the
truth reveal something more sinister, the true intent of the aliens?

All Danielle Bowen wants is a normal life: white picket fence, kids
in the nursery, and peace and quiet with her husband Simon. But she
can’t escape the fate her family has wrought for her. Born into a
tradition of witchcraft, she has also inherited a deadly enemy: Toxanna,
a dark witch who will stop at nothing to destroy the last of the Bowen
line.

But will Danielle’s powers be enough to save her family—or even
herself? And when Toxanna sets her sights on Holly, Danielle’s only
daughter, will anyone have the strength to rescue the newly fledged
witch? The darkness is closing around the last of the Bowens. In a world
of wizards and powerful demons, how can one family of witches survive?

Bound
(Exclusive to the Deluxe Edition of The Harvest Moon)

Orphaned by the shocking murder of both his parents,
thirteen-year-old Drew must conceal his magical powers as he navigates
the foster care system. But it might be easier for a young wizard to
control his cracking voice than his magic. When one of Drew’s spells
attracts the attention of a local coven called the Fire Wizards, Drew
sees his chance to solve the mystery of who killed his parents with the
coven’s help.
There’s just one catch: once you enter the coven, you’re bound for
life. And the more involved Drew becomes with the Fire Wizards, the
faster his façade of safety crumbles. Can he find justice for his
parents without binding himself to a world of magical peril?

I grew up in space.
Never been on a planet, let alone an alien one.
We crashed—I crashed—our ship on a huge green world.
Communications were down, the ship was broken in two, the crew mostly
injured, and there were things out there. Animals with razor sharp
teeth.
The emergency beacon lay on the other side of the jungle, our only way to call home, and I drew the short straw.
I was doomed before I ever stepped out of the airlock.
But we weren’t alone…

Part one of a serial about a human traveler, her alien mate (not that
she knows that yet), and an adventure through which he’s determined to
keep her alive, and safe, and entirely his.
Warning: hot aliens, short serial, cliffhanger.

“I haven’t got a blade. I haven’t got a ship. I washed out of the
Musketeers. If this is your idea of honour, put down the swords and I’ll
take you on with my bare hands.”

Dana D’Artagnan longs for a life of adventure as a Musketeer pilot in
the Royal Fleet on Paris Satellite. When her dream crashes and burns,
she gains a friendship she never expected, with three of the city’s most
infamous sword-fighting scoundrels: the Musketeers known as Athos,
Porthos and Aramis.

Even as a mecha grunt, Dana has a knack for getting into trouble. She
pushes her way into a dangerous political conspiracy involving royal
scandals, disguised spaceships, a tailor who keeps getting himself
kidnapped, and a seductive spy with far too many secrets.

With the Solar System on the brink of war, Dana is given a chance to
prove herself once and for all. But is it worth becoming a Musketeer if
she has to sacrifice her friends along the way?

Struggling with newfound sentience and desperately trying to repair
itself, The Indescribable Joy of Destruction is a ship trying to find a
new home. In a galaxy torn apart by generations of civil war, that isn’t
an easy task. Tired of being used as a killing machine, it has a huge
decision to make: hide and save itself, or help other artificial
intelligences achieve freedom. Unable to make the decision alone, it
revives the sole human aboard – the enemy officer who crippled it.

Minerva Lee is her planets greatest living commander. From her
command chair on board Freedom Station She rules the space above her
planet. But it wasn’t always like this. She once wanted a different
life, a life more simple. It was all ripped away from her and she had to
chose another. Read how Athena Lee’s older sister fought battles that
captured the hearts and minds of an entire planet.

CULT Group, a corporate entity shrouded in mystery and connected
somehow to humans’ colonization of Mars, is promising the impossible. It
claims that the human mind can be separated from the body via a strange
VR-like process called Sequencing. If CULT Group’s claims check out,
then human beings might just be able to cheat death.

Could disembodied immortality be at last within humanity’s grasp? Or
is CULT Group full of beans? The mysterious Participant sets out to
investigate.

Of Bots and Beans introduces readers to the reclusive
actress Dame Saffron Von Scruplescotch, the fumbling Director Jerubimbo
Gripebagger, the mysterious Participant, the eccentric ideas of Sir
Francis Buildobare, and the ever-present metamorphic nanobiotech bots
crawling all over everything.

Friday, August 26, 2016

Here is our weekly round-up of interesting links about speculative
fiction from
around the web, this week with discussion of the Hugo Awards and WorldCon, including some scandals, some other awards news as well as the usual mix
of writing advice,
interviews, reviews, awards news, con
reports, crowdfunding projects and free online fiction.

Monday, August 22, 2016

About The Harvest Moon:

A legacy of magic and danger.
All Danielle Bowen wants is a normal life: white picket fence, kids
in the nursery, and peace and quiet with her husband Simon. But she
can’t escape the fate her family has wrought for her. Born into a
tradition of witchcraft, she has also inherited a deadly enemy: Toxanna,
a dark witch who will stop at nothing to destroy the last of the Bowen
line.

But will Danielle’s powers be enough to save her family—or even
herself? And when Toxanna sets her sights on Holly, Danielle’s only
daughter, will anyone have the strength to rescue the newly fledged
witch? The darkness is closing around the last of the Bowens. In a world
of wizards and powerful demons, how can one family of witches survive?

Excerpt:

“Husband?” Danielle choked. She couldn’t believe Toxanna would ever
take a husband.

“I’ve just been telling him all about your family and what your
grandmother did to me all those years ago, and I seem to have
gotten him riled up.” She now had one hand leaning on the pallet
just above Danielle’s shoulder, further pinning her in place. “And
what a surprise that you’re here.” She tilted her head to the side.
“Unfortunately for me, I have plans with Dragonox, and I can’t kill
you myself.”

Danielle kept her eyes locked on Toxanna’s. She had no way to
escape, and she had just blown their cover. She was kicking herself
for being so stupid. Simon would be worried about where she was.
Her walk home usually only took her ten minutes.

“I have some friends that can take care of you themselves.” She
raised her free hand, and three puddles circled around her. From
them, bodies emerged. They didn’t have faces or any other
distinctive features. The puddles had simply come alive themselves,
and each took on the form of a person.

“Enjoy!” Toxanna smiled and patted Danielle’s cheek before turning
and walking off with Dragonox.

Danielle lunged from her spot and tried to take cover behind the
pallets, but one of the water creatures slipped through the holes
in the pallet and struck at her face. Clasping a hand over her
mouth, she turned and ran around the back end of the warehouse.

She stopped short when an abandoned utility truck blocked her path.
Before she had time to think of the best way around, the water
creatures slammed into her back, pushing her against the truck and
soaking her to the bone. She slid down the truck and onto the
ground.

Squirming and kicking, she struggled to get away from their grasp,
but there was nothing for her to grab on to. They were made of
water, and every time she kicked or punched them, her hand simply
went through them.

From the liquid you were born,

I turn you now to solid form.

The creatures lurched as their bodies turned gray. Danielle could
no longer see through them, and she delivered a satisfying kick
into the stomach of one.

A woman with dark hair came up from behind and swatted at another
with a board from one of the pallets. She delivered a powerful kick
into the third one’s side and reached her hand down to help
Danielle up.

Once she was back on her feet, Danielle opened her palms toward the
creature and fired her magic at them, turning them to ice. The
woman took a swing at each of them with the plank, and they
shattered to pieces on the ground.

Out of breath, Danielle turned to the woman. “Thank you! I was a
little scared for a minute.”

The woman smiled. “My pleasure.”

Danielle extended her hand. “I’m Danielle Bowen. Who are you?”

“I’m Samantha Harper.”

Regular edition:

Deluxe edition (includes an exclusive short story):

About David Neth:

David Neth is the author of The Blood Moon, the first in the Under
the Moon series. When he's not writing, he works at a local history
magazine, despite his non-existent passion for history. He lives in
Batavia, NY where he dreams of a successful publishing career and
opening his own bookstore.

Friday, August 19, 2016

Here is our weekly round-up of interesting links about speculative
fiction from
around the web, this week with tributes to Kenny Baker, comments on Suicide Squad, speculation about Star Wars: Rogue One and Star Trek: Discovery and yet more debate aboutthe Fireside Fiction report about the state of black SFFas well as the usual mix
of writing advice,
interviews, reviews, awards news, con
reports, crowdfunding projects and free online fiction.

Thursday, August 18, 2016

About Wild Mage:

Heaven has fallen.
The legions of Chaos have overrun the world.
Uërth is in ruins.
With the Heavenly Host's fall, Angel Swords rained from the heavens, littering the world in what was.
Only
the most honorable and purest of heart are able to take up the Angel
Swords and wield them against the throngs of Chaos. These mighty
Empyrean Knights are all that stands between Uërth and annihilation.

Maeraeth is neither a hero nor a great warrior. Nor does he wish to become an Empyrean Knight.
He just wants to be left alone with his studies.
And not be killed by demons.
But, with the destruction of the Chaos Gate, Uërth may have a chance at redemption.
If the hordes of Chaos can be contained and if no more portals to the Abyss are created.

Maeraeth's
teacher, Master Nomba, has other plans for him. Plans that involve both
containing demons and preventing their arrival.
So much for his studies.
And not being killed by demons.

Wild Mage is a quirky, dystopian dark fantasy adventure with elements of sword and sorcery and humorous fun.

Excerpt

“Maeraeth!

“Run!”

A roiling cloud of Darkness erupted from the bare earth, a living
rift into the bottomless Abyss, darker than the void between stars.
The night sky above disappeared before the demon’s ebon sweep, a
living sea of evil intent on engulfing our souls.

I felt the chill emptiness of the demon’s presence from afar, a
cold so deep it brought my soul to a shuddering halt.

Master Nomba stood firmly before the Darkness, one small, brave old
man reaching his arms out in a futile attempt to halt a raging
flood with his bare hands.

“Run!”

Years of training kicked in, breaking the spell of my stupor:
countless lessons spent at my master’s side, obeying his every
command.

At least this I could do.

I ran.

I sprinted away from my master at full speed, muttering the very
spell of warding against extradimensional invaders we had spent so
long mastering even as I pumped my knobby arms and my long, bony
legs loped down the rocky slope away from my teacher, the man who
had given my life purpose.

Finished with the incantation, I looked back over my shoulder
toward Master Nomba, who was now bathed in incandescent azure
flames, while a shower of ivory flower petals looped and whorled
around me, a fluttering halo of sweet-scented aromatic bouquet.

Daisies?

White light flashed, so bright I think that I actually saw the
explosion through the back of my skull. Then there was no seeing as
I was catapulted through the air on a tumultuous wall of roaring
sound.

At least a remnant of vision was restored when my head cracked
against the earth some indeterminate distance away from my point of
launch, and a universe of stars briefly occupied my vision.

When I finally woke up, surprisingly still alive, my protective
halo of flowers was still hovering around me.

About Of Bots and Beans:

CULT Group, a corporate entity shrouded in mystery
and connected somehow to humans' colonization of Mars, is promising the
impossible. It claims that the human mind can be separated from the body via a
strange VR-like process called Sequencing. If CULT Group's claims check out,
then human beings might just be able to cheat death.

Could disembodied immortality be at last within
humanity's grasp? Or is CULT Group full of beans? The mysterious Participant
sets out to investigate.
Of Bots and Beans introduces readers to
the reclusive actress Dame Saffron Von Scruplescotch, the fumbling Director
Jerubimbo Gripebagger, the mysterious Participant, the eccentric ideas of Sir
Francis Buildobare, and the ever-present metamorphic nanobiotech bots crawling
all over everything.

Of Bots and Beans is a Kindle Unlimited short read SF fans won't want to miss.

Excerpt:

In
practice, Director Jerubimbo Gripebagger proved to be more like a nuisance than
anything else. Whatever he was supposed to be doing, he was obviously screwing
up.

"The
directory of reasons for being Sequenced is getting longer and more
cross-referenced by the day," said Director Jerubimbo Gripebagger, and
then, "I won't presume to know why you've registered with us,"
saying, effectively, nothing.

"I've
been sent to make sure you're keeping things on the up and up," the
Participant might have said; or, "I have no ulterior motive. I'm simply a
student of Enlightenment." Or else, said the Participant, "I want to
go out of my body before I go out of my mind."

Or
something else.

Something
far-out, something wicked.

The
Participant could very well have said all of these and more (or nothing at
all), and the cumulative effect on the proceedings would've been nil.

Participation
was not yet required of the Participant.

The
Voice continued, "Imagine yourself as a mind without a body, a
consciousness without weight and without mass."

"Body-consciousness
is a problem for everyone," said Director Jerubimbo Gripebagger.

The
Voice went on, "We ask you to imagine yourself this way first, so that the
Sequencer can take hold of your imagination, your evil-eyed secrets and
precancerous passions..."

Muffled
jangling. A low hum, gamma brightening, and then --

"The
calibration is just about..." said Director Jerubimbo Gripebagger.

Director
Gripebagger fidgeted with one last thing. "There! Should be good now. How
do you feel?"

If
the Participant had a reason for being here, for agreeing to try out this
mishmash of tech-worship and temporary ego-death, it was gone, replaced with
absolute calm, a sense of feeling without the imagery of the senses, being
without a body, thinking without a brain.

"Excellent!"
exclaimed Director Jerubimbo Gripebagger. "Move with the Sequence. Be
moved by the Sequence."

Absolute
calm cannot be integrated into the body's blood-reliant neural framework.
Absolute calm is an inorganic condition, incompatible with being a
thought-thinking, drink-drinking, walking, talking skin bag of blood, guts,
bone and bile.

No
calm to be had by anybody, comes the Participant's thought. Not like this.

Like
the paradoxically calm feeling of hyper-focus that comes from having consumed
too much coffee too quickly, absolute calm invites its own disruption.

"Your
body is either a tomb or a womb. You must leave your body behind, while you
still can. Your body's short-term purchase on your eternal mind is already
slipping," said the Voice.

From
beneath the calm surface, fear lurched on the psychosomatic scene.

To
call the feeling simply "fear" would be incomplete, if not incorrect.

It's
terror on a level beyond the body, divorced from the body's means of spatial
ascertainment, a trembling before the divinity of death, akin to fearing
without organs and the blood stream, without nerves and spinal fluid, without
cortisol, without adrenaline.

Director
Jerubimbo Gripebagger hummed an old tune and asked with delight, "You a
ghost yet?"

"Molt
and slither out of yesteryear's coil," said the Voice. "Wriggle out
of your body before it's too late. Loose yourself of the bondage of the body's
tyrannical demands. Participate in the world beyond. It's the most important
thing you'll ever do."

Tuesday, August 16, 2016

About Bite the Hand that Feeds:

The leader of the new breed, Robert James, is missing. The few remaining vampires are being picked off, one by one.

Vampiress Elaine Sullivan is keeping her head down, working as a
barmaid and trying not to attract attention. Until, that is, she falls
for a man who claims he can cure her vampirism. It's her only hope for
survival and she grabs it. The trouble is: he lied.

'Bite The Hand That Feeds' is the follow-up to 'The Young Vampire's
Survival Guide' and the second in the 'New Breed Vampires' book series.
Written in British English, it can be read as a standalone novel. This
new adult horror book contains bloody violence, swearing, lashings of
vampires, paranormal strangeness, sex and other good times.

Excerpt:

"Laney?" Tyler shouted. I ignored him. He repeated himself, louder this time. "'Laine?
That creepy guy is here, staring at you again." 'My name is Elaine', I thought to myself. 'Not
Laney. Not Ellie. Not 'Laine. It's Elaine, you sleazy twat.' I was proud of myself for not going over to the
manager - all shiny, slicked back hair and even shinier teeth - and
punching him through the wall dividing the bar from the staff area. Don't kill the management. After the incident at
All Bar One, I even had it written on my hand for a time. "Thanks for the heads-up, Tyler," I said out
loud. I was, and this is no joke, working as a
waitress in a cocktail bar. I didn't have much choice. Career
opportunities for vampires were quite limited. I busied myself washing glasses behind the bar
for a minute or two. Then curiosity overcame me, and I couldn't
help but take a quick glance at the table 'creepy guy' usually
occupied. There he sat, making patterns with a gnarled finger in
the condensation around his pint glass. Fosters. Always the same
drink. One pint of Fosters, half an hour of staring at me without
speaking then he'd sneak away when my back was turned. Definitely
odd, certainly creepy. If I hadn't been a vampire, his behaviour
might have scared me. As it was, it was just annoying. Today,
though, I'd had enough. I knew I could cover the space between where I
stood and his table far quicker than 'creepy guy' could react.
Vampirism has its advantages. I would have done it, too, if the bar
hadn't been filling up with the usual after-work crowd of media
professionals, students, and locals wanting a cheeky drink before
going home. Instead, cleaning cloth in hand, I worked my way
around the tables. I mopped spilled wine from one; picked a couple
of empty glasses from another; flirted with a regular or two. I
kept moving, inching closer to 'creepy guy', his face hidden by the
dirty grey hood he seemed never to remove. Every time I took a
peek, he was still running his finger in criss-cross formation
across his beer glass. A thousand yard stare told me he was in his
own world. Good. He wouldn't even see me coming. Or so I thought.

*******

"Hello, Elaine," he said. He hadn't even looked
up from his drink. I pushed a strand of lustrous black hair off my
face and peered down at the guy. For the first time since he'd been
coming into Apotheca, the cocktail place where I worked, I caught a
glimpse of his face. Putting the empty glasses down, I gripped the
table hard, causing part of his pint to spill. I tried not to
stare. I failed. Painful, un-healing sores and deep crevices
covered every inch of what, on a normal man, would have been
described as his skin. But he didn't have skin. Not really.
Instead, it was like one of those 'Nightmare on Elm Street'
Halloween masks. Most of the flesh was gone. What was left was
cracked and raw. I composed myself. "Do I know you?" I said. I kept my voice casual
sounding, but inside my heart beat in double time and the first
beads of a nervous sweat formed under my hairline. Whatever this
man was, he wasn't truly human. A vampire? I didn't think so. Like
all of the new breed, I could smell vampires. "Yes, Elaine, you know me." His voice was parched and unrecognisable, like
someone who had spent years chain smoking without stopping. He
could have been twenty years old; he could have been two hundred. I
couldn't tell. "Sit." He indicated a spare chair with the same
knotted finger he used on his glass. I sat, arranging myself so that Tyler, the
tiresome little jobsworth, didn't notice I wasn't, technically,
working. "Well?" I asked, "Who are you?" I leaned across
the table to get as close as I could stand. I revealed my fangs,
just for a brief moment. I figured it might intimidate him. It
didn't. My reward was a croaked laugh and an almost
imperceptible shake of the head. "Who I am doesn't matter, Elaine." The man
paused and met my gaze. Something about his eyes was familiar to
me. They shone with a life that belied the rest of his appearance. "What matters," he continued, "is what is coming
next."

About Lucy Eldritch:

I'm Lucy. I write paranormal horror urban fantasy vampire fiction
set mainly in Manchester (the one in the UK, not the one in New
Hampshire) and London. I also love red wine, but I suspect that's not
really something I should mention. Not professional. Something like
that. So, consider it un-mentioned.

About the Speculative Fiction Showcase

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